probes::telnetIOSPing - Cisco IOS Probe for SmokePing *** Probes *** + telnetIOSPing packetsize = 56 forks = 1 ++ PROBE_CONF iospass = password iosuser = user target = 192.168.1.1 source = 192.168.2.1 psource = 192.168.2.129 Integrates Cisco IOS as a probe into smokeping. Uses the telnet protocol to run a ping from an IOS device (source) to another device (target). This probe basically uses the "extended ping" of the Cisco IOS. You have the option to specify which interface the ping is sourced from as well. The iosuser, iospass, source, and target options are mandatory. The (optional) packetsize option lets you configure the packetsize for the pings sent. The default size is 56. The (optional) forks options lets you configure the number of simultaneous remote pings to be run. NB Some IOS devices have a maximum of 5 VTYs available, so be careful not to hit a limit. The source option specifies the IOS device to which we telnet. This is an IP address of an IOS Device that you/your server: 1) Have the ability to telnet to 2) Have a valid username and password for The target option specifies the device you wish to ping from your IOS Device. The (optional) psource option specifies an alternate IP address or Interface from which you wish to source your pings from. Routers can have many many IP addresses, and interfaces. When you ping from a router you have the ability to choose which interface and/or which IP address the ping is sourced from. Specifying an IP/interface does not necessarily specify the interface from which the ping will leave, but will specify which address the packet(s) appear to come from. If this option is left out the IOS Device will source the packet automatically based on routing and/or metrics. If this doesn't make sense to you then just leave it out. The iosuser option allows you to specify a username that has ping capability on the IOS Device. The iospass option allows you to specify the password for the username specified with the option iosuser. The IOS device should have a username/password configured, as well as the ability to connect to the VTY(s). eg: ! username smokeping privilege 5 password 0 SmokepingPassword ! line vty 0 4 login local transport input telnet !

Requirements
This module requires the Net::Telnet module for perl. This is usually included on most newer OSs which include perl.

Debugging
There is some VERY rudimentary debugging code built into this module (it's based on the debugging code written into Net::Telnet). It will log information into three files "TIPreturn", "TIPoutlog", and "TIPdump". These files will be written out into your current working directory (CWD). You can change the names of these files to something with more meaning to you.

Password authentication
You should be advised that the authentication method of telnet uses clear text transmissions...meaning that without proper network security measures someone could sniff your username and password off the network. I may attempt to incorporate SSH in a future version of this module, but it is very doubtful. Right now SSH adds a LOT of processing overhead to a router, and isn't incredibly easy to implement in perl. Having said this, don't be too scared of telnet. Remember, the original IOSPing module used RSH, which is even more scary to use from a security perspective.

Ping packet size
The FPing manpage has the following to say on the topic of ping packet size: Number of bytes of ping data to send. The minimum size (normally 12) allows room for the data that fping needs to do its work (sequence number, timestamp). The reported received data size includes the IP header (normally 20 bytes) and ICMP header (8 bytes), so the minimum total size is 40 bytes. Default is 56, as in ping. Maximum is the theoretical maximum IP datagram size (64K), though most systems limit this to a smaller, system-dependent number. John A Jackson <geonjay@infoave.net> based HEAVILY on probes::IOSPing by Paul J Murphy <paul@murph.org> based on probes::FPing by Tobias Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch>